Summer Nights
by daphnap
Summary: A 10 yr. old Xander get's an unwanted preview of the future for him and his friends.


Title: Summer Nights  
  
Rating: G  
  
Spoilers: Welcome to Sunnydale Pts 1 and 2 (minor)  
  
Summary: Xander at ten years old, a normal kid with only a hint of things to come.  
  
Author's notes: Foreshadowing rocks.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, all Joss's, mucho jealous. No money being made, in any respect, so don't take what little I have (a laptop that doesn't work all that well and a pillow)  
  
**  
  
He doesn't remember the first time he felt it. It had come to him slowly, like the caterpillar across the leaf that he saw one time in the schoolyard. Plodding, sluggish, as if the words he wanted to use refused to fall in line.  
  
He felt it though.  
  
It would come to him only at certain times though. A brief flash followed by confusion's undertow. He didn't like it; of this he was certain.  
  
It made him feel…scared.  
  
"Hormones." Willow told him once, patting him on the back, and looking at him with her I-Know-All-Because-I-Asked-Mrs-Landingham look. He would nod his head and try not to look her directly in the eye.  
  
Hormones.  
  
No, it wasn't that either. It was too simple of a word; with too little consonants to fully encompass what was twisting in his stomach whenever he saw Jesse in the shade of the Sunnydale Elementary's singular oak tree.  
  
Or when he saw Willow in the light of the TV while watching Scooby Doo.  
  
Or when he saw Jesse asleep with a certain smile on his face; the oh-god-it- shouldn't-look-like-that-smile.  
  
The feeling would come and Xander would be certain that it wasn't the result of his voice changing and him growing hair in the oddest places.  
  
No, it wasn't that feeling.  
  
He remembered when it first hit: the dread, the anxiety of the next day that would surely follow that he couldn't stop because, let's face it, who could stop time?  
  
He was lying awake on top of his sleeping bag.  
  
Willow was curled up under her blanket that she never left home without, her thumb dangerously close to her pursed lips. She was asleep, her wet hair (from the shower or the water fight earlier that day?) was curled around the pillow and for a moment Xander couldn't pull his eyes away.  
  
He had been ten years old and still hadn't heard the word 'hormone'.  
  
The way the window refused to let the street light shine through, and the way the night-light bathed the room in only a bluish glow made her hair…different.  
  
Darker.  
  
Blacker.  
  
Her skin seemed to lose color and Xander found himself examining the way her veins patterned themselves like spider webs across her arms and face. Xander found himself transfixed, so he tore his eyes away.  
  
He looked back and her thumb was grasped tightly in her mouth and her hair was red again, copper.  
  
Her skin was still flushed from the water fight and Xander lost touch with the well of seemingly endless horror.  
  
He was ten and he had found himself afraid of his best friend.  
  
He didn't go to sleep that night, even though he wanted to.  
  
That night had been a Friday and tomorrow was Saturday and the cartoons would begin promptly at six a.m. and he knew he needed his sleep.  
  
He didn't go to sleep, finding himself dreading tomorrow.  
  
**  
  
That had been only a taste; the buffet would unravel soon for Xander.  
  
Another time that the feeling seeped under his collar had been unexpected.  
  
It had been light out.  
  
No shadows to fear, no inopportune time to be awake, just lunchtime dodge ball with some friends.  
  
Willow had been the smart one (she usually was) and had sat this one out, preferring to memorize the presidents of the United States so she would be prepared for the test that would surely be in 7th grade (which they wouldn't be in for another two years).  
  
But Jesse hadn't joined in either and that was unusual.  
  
Jesse loved dodge ball; lived for it. Something about beaning a classmate really hit home to the reedy ten year old who would surely be swirly-ed if he dared it outside of the game.  
  
The game.  
  
So Xander, left to his own devices, faltered.  
  
It had seeped under his color.  
  
It.  
  
Feeling.  
  
It gripped his throat tighter than his knuckle-white grip on the ball.  
  
Jesse leaned against the wall-ball wall, one arm crossed over the other, a scowl aimed towards the sun.  
  
The sun hadn't insulted Jesse, but for some reason it had earned his ire. Jesse glared at the sun and the sun, the dumb big blinding ball of light that it was, unwittingly, glared right back.  
  
It was, coincidently, another ball, this one a bit smaller, that bounced off of the distracted Xander's head and dislodged the grip around his throat.  
  
He fell to the floor, his hands already held out, grasping the searing hot concrete, and coughed until his lungs burned.  
  
When he looked up Jesse was gone.  
  
The wall was unmarked.  
  
As if he had never been there.  
  
He could faintly make out the prints of Jesse's Doc Martins in the sand.  
  
A small wind picked up and then even they disappeared in a swirl of dust.  
  
As Xander picked himself up, he caught the faint smell of ashes.  
  
**  
  
end. 


End file.
